


Five Times Magnus Struggles and One Time He Doesn’t

by notcrypticbutcoy



Series: Celebrity!Magnus AU [5]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cop!Alec, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Malec, Mental Health Issues, celebrity!magnus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 19:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17106830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcrypticbutcoy/pseuds/notcrypticbutcoy
Summary: Sometimes, Magnus’ brain doesn’t quite work in the way he wants it to. At first, he’s terrible at dealing with it—but then he gets better. Slowly.Or: in which Magnus struggles with depression, Ragnor is an excellent friend, and Alec is an extremely supportive partner.





	Five Times Magnus Struggles and One Time He Doesn’t

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of a complementary piece to the last fic I posted in this series, and they do tie into each other.
> 
> Like the last one, this fic is pretty personal to me—although not quite to the same extent. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this one!

1.

“I got your text, I— Jesus Christ, this place is a tip.”

Magnus glared up at Ragnor from where he sat in the middle of his bedroom floor, general shit scattered around him, with an unlit cigarette dangling from between his fingers. Unlit, because if his foster parents smelt smoke they’d absolutely ruin him, but there because smoking was a pretty great distraction. Booze, too.

“Magnus.” Ragnor looked around carefully, and then back at him. “What’s going on?”

Magnus shrugged, which was his standard response to pretty much every question he was asked, these days. When he’d been sent back by his last foster parents and the services had wanted to know why, he hadn’t told them about the parties and the dodgy doings—he’d shrugged at them and refused to talk. When the woman he was currently staying with had asked him what time he’d be back, he’d shrugged, and muttered something noncommittal to her request to text her.

It wasn’t that he was being deliberately insolent, although he could forgive people for not catching onto that. Given his history, it was an easy assumption to make. He just couldn’t be fucking bothered. With anything. Least of all conversation.

“Alright, well you might want to live in squalor, but good hosts clean up before their guests arrive so that other people don’t have to suffer.” Ragnor smirked. “Luckily for you, I’m here to help.”

He flicked the cigarette between his fingers and didn’t respond. Ragnor didn’t seem to care. Instead, he bent down and began to pick up the items strewn around the room. He tossed Magnus’ clothes in the laundry basket, piled his school work on his desk, and slotted books and CDs back on the shelf. They weren’t Magnus’ books and CDs, of course, not most of them, which was precisely why, when Magnus had flung them all across the room and hoped they’d crack, it hadn’t helped.

Well. Okay. Maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe he’d just needed some way to let out the helpless pit of dark hopelessness that sat eating away at his stomach, relentless and merciless and a real fucking pain in the ass.

“I bought you these on my way over.”

A pile of magazines slapped down on the floor in front of him, followed by one of the Double Deckers Ragnor stocked up on every time he went back to London and hid like they were made of cocaine. Magnus loved them. He didn’t get why America didn’t have them. It seemed like a pretty appalling oversight.

“Thanks,” Magnus said.

Ragnor frowned. “What’s going on, kiddo? I’ve known you for six years and I’ve never seen you pass up the opportunity to look at one of those bloody magazines. Not to mention my prize British chocolate.”

Magnus exhaled. “I don’t know,” he admitted, staring down at the magazine laying on the top but not taking in any of the front cover. “Nothing’s bad. Jess and Del are okay, but I just– I just don’t _care_. About anything. Least of all what the fuck I’m doing with my own miserable life.”

Understanding flashed through Ragnor’s eyes. What he understood, Magnus didn’t have a clue, because it wasn’t like he understood anything himself. Ragnor tipped his head up, pressed his lips together, and exhaled through his nose, before lowering himself down onto the floor opposite Magnus.

“Have you been sleeping?”

Magnus blinked at the question. “I can’t always get to sleep,” he said after a moment, glancing down at his hands. At the chipped black nail varnish that the kids at school had seen as a point of torment, until Magnus had turned it into a point of strength by making them all look absolutely goddamn pathetic. “But once I do I don’t want to get out of bed. Ever.”

“Because you hate school?”

Magnus shrugged. “No. I don’t hate school. I don’t even hate the people anymore. Well, not all of them. I just... I just feel so fucking miserable. Everything’s pointless, isn’t it? I’m never going to do anything with my life, I’m never going to make anything of myself, nobody’s ever going to give a fuck about what happens to me. Why should I give a fuck about what happens to me? God, fuck that, I don’t care what happens to me. I just don’t fucking care, Ragnor. About anything.”

“I care about what happens to you,” Ragnor said firmly, ducking his head to catch Magnus’ gaze. “You’re important no matter what you do with your life. You don’t have to tick boxes to matter. And you’re fifteen. Nobody can write you off yet. Least of all yourself.”

Magnus didn’t reply. He didn’t know what to say to that. Because, logically, he knew that Ragnor was probably right. But Magnus couldn’t find it in himself to believe him.

The weight of Ragnor’s gaze resting on him made Magnus look up and arch his eyebrows irritably. He loved Ragnor to pieces, but he wanted him to leave now. He’d had enough. He wanted to be left alone to feel worthless and miserable.

“How long have you been feeling like this?”

“I don’t know. A while. A couple of months.”

“Hm. Maybe you should see a doctor about it.”

“What kind of good is a doctor going to do?” Magnus snapped. “Besides, I can’t afford to see a doctor, and it’s not like Jess or Del will pay.”

“I’m sure they would.”

“Maybe,” Magnus muttered, “but only if I talked to them about why. And that’s the last thing I want to do.”

“Alright, I’ll pay.”

That made Magnus pause, everything in him stilling and focusing in on what Ragnor was saying. Why would Ragnor offer to pay for him to go to a doctor? What did it matter to him?

After a moment, he shook his head. “You don’t need to do that.”

“I want to. You don’t have to say yes, but I think it would be worth your time. Just think about it. Text me if you decide you want to go, and I’ll take you after school one day. Alright?”

“Yeah.” Magnus cleared his throat. “Thank you, Ragnor.”

Ragnor smiled at him. “Anytime. Want me to bugger off and leave you to wallow, now?”

“Maybe,” Magnus said, and Ragnor laughed, warm and kind and generous, and possibly the best sound in Magnus’ life.

***

2.

“Stop! Stop stop stop. Stop.”

Through the blindingly bright lights shining straight at him, Magnus could see the shoot director waving his arms about and shaking his head, irritation written across his face and annoyance sitting tense in his shoulders. The photographer lowered her camera, glancing at Magnus and then over to Eduardo.

“Magnus.”

Eduardo stepped forward into the light, folding his arms across his chest and staring Magnus down. Somehow, he always seemed to make Magnus feel about three feet tall, despite being at least six inches shorter than him.

“This is no good,” Eduardo said, gesturing to the camera and then to Magnus. “Your positioning, it’s all wrong. There is no life, no seduction, no enticement. People will look at these photographs and be bored, Magnus. I am bored. Janelle is bored. We are all bored. It is boring, it is tired, it is unoriginal.”

Magnus felt his shoulders slump further than they already were in the sharp black suit he’d been commissioned to model for a magazine shoot. He was to be the brand’s frontman for the line in their adverts - not that it was a particularly big brand, nor a particularly big magazine - and this was to be his first step on the ladder. Of what, he didn’t quite know, but it was something.

And he was fucking it up. His head was fucking it up.

“Find something to set you on fire,” Eduardo continued, oblivious to how much Magnus wanted to get the fuck out of the studio, go home, curl up in bed and cry. “I snatched you up from nothing because I recognised that there is something unique about you. That is what I want in this advert. Nobody will buy something that looks boring on the model. Yes?”

“Yeah.”

“We will take a break. Come back in twenty minutes, and I expect you to step this up, Magnus. I expect more.”

Magnus didn’t even have the energy to feel insulted.

***

New York was beautiful at night.

The city truly never did sleep: even with darkness veiling the skies, bright lights shone from every direction, casting soft orange-yellow reflections across the river. Traffic, trains, and shouting people created a raucous that was muffled only by the ringing in Magnus’ ears that hadn’t quite stopped since he left the studio two hours ago.

It was cold. He was cold. So cold he didn’t think he could feel his fingers anymore, but he wasn’t totally sure. He felt disconnected from himself, like he was staring out across the city through someone else’s eyes.

He couldn’t do it. He wasn’t good enough at anything, and he never would be. He would never be able to model without being _boring_. He would never make a living doing something he enjoyed. He wasn’t sure he even had enough money to finish college and get a degree in something useful and at least mildly enjoyable, like chemistry. He was absolutely fucked, and there was no way out.

Never could Magnus remember feeling so fucking alone. Even after his mother had died, even after he’d been placed into care, even when he’d truly had nobody in the world, he hadn’t felt like this. Like—

Well. Like perhaps the best course of action was to climb up onto the trailing he had his forearms braced against and throw himself into the churning waters below.

Before Magnus could get too caught up in that thought, before the seductiveness of an empty, silent tranquility could capture him, his phone buzzed loudly in his pocket. He swallowed, blinking away the shadows trying to tempt him down.

**[From: Cabbage, 23:13]**

**for your British education, see below: a twat**

**[img.]**

For a moment, Magnus stared down at his screen, uncomprehending. He didn’t try to download the image. He didn’t really take in the words. But he found himself clicking into Ragnor’s contact and calling him anyway.

“This is not a civilised time to call someone,” Ragnor grumbled immediately upon picking up, because, of course, Magnus had forgotten that Ragnor was in London, and therefore five hours ahead of him.

The mere sound of his voice made tears sting in Magnus’ eyes. He had to take a moment to breathe before he could reply.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and swallowed. “I didn’t– I’m sorry.”

“Magnus, no.” He could hear Ragnor shuffling around in the background. Most likely, he was already in bed, cursing out Magnus’ existence for disturbing his sleep. “If something’s wrong, you know I’m always here for you.”

“Yeah,” Magnus said roughly. “Yeah, I know. I’m— Oh, god, what am I doing?”

“Alright, it’s okay,” Ragnor said, in that voice of his that managed to be simultaneously gentle and unimaginably convincing. As a general rule, Magnus despised people telling him that it was okay when it absolutely was not. Somehow, Ragnor seemed to be the exception. “Just tell me what’s going on, and we’ll fix this.”

“I’m on the Brooklyn Bridge. I had a shoot with Eduardo, and it- it didn’t go well. I don’t know why, I felt fine yesterday, and today I just felt so shit, and the shoot made it worse, and now– Fuck, what was I thinking?” Magnus could hear the fright in his own voice. “What made me– Fuck.”

“What made you what?”

“I thought about jumping,” Magnus whispered, closing his eyes against the harsh city lights and hanging his head between his shoulders. He clutched at his phone like it was a lifeline. “I wasn’t actually going to do it, but I thought about it.”

“Darling,” Ragnor said, so softly it made Magnus choke on a sob he hadn’t realised was forming. There was an odd, strangled sort of noise from Ragnor’s end of the line, and his voice sounded rough when he said, “Oh, god, Magnus.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you ever apologise for this,” Ragnor told him firmly. “Ever. I’m so sorry I’m not there.”

“It’s not your fault.” Magnus hesitated, and hated how weak he sounded when he said, “I don’t want to be alone.”

“What about your friend Catarina? Could you stay with her for the night?”

He’d only known Catarina for a few months, having met her during their first week at university in a math class. Something between them had clicked almost immediately. He certainly hadn’t told her any of his deepest, darkest secrets. But...maybe.

“I could ask.”

“I think you should do that. But—” Ragnor’s voice grew urgent, serious “—if you’re still thinking about suicide, you need to go to a hospital right now.”

“I’m not,” Magnus told him honestly, gripping at the railings as he screwed his eyes tight shut. “I’m not, not really, I just... I’ve got that _feeling_ again.”

“I’ll be in New York tomorrow,” Ragnor said, and Magnus heard the rapid tap of a keyboard. “I think you should see your doctor again as soon as you can.”

“I thought this was supposed to go away after the first time,” Magnus whispered. As he shook his head, he felt tears slip down his cheeks. “I thought I was supposed to get better.”

“You did,” Ragnor reminded him, voice saturated with so much care that Magnus could feel it even over the phone, irrespective of the thousands of miles between them. “It’s okay to struggle, and to need help. It’s okay that you relapsed. I’m not a doctor, but maybe you need help with managing it and reducing your symptoms, rather than trying to just get rid of it.”

“I feel like a failure. I feel...weak. I hate feeling weak.”

“You are the opposite of weak, Magnus Bane. You’ve been halfway across the world and through hell to get to where you are today, and you’re just beginning to do everything you’ve always dreamed of. Nothing about you is weak. Even the strongest people have vulnerable moments and need help, and that’s okay. Asking for help when you need it makes you stronger, not weaker.”

“I just...” Magnus exhaled, trying to let Ragnor’s words settle in his mind and help tame his ricocheting thoughts. “I just want to stop feeling like this. I want to be normal.”

“I know,” was all Ragnor said, as gently as Magnus thought possible.

Somehow, that was the best response he could imagine. There was no point in arguing over the semantics of normality, or telling Magnus that it would be okay, or assuring him that this made him who he was—that was all bullshit. It wasn’t normal to feel like he did—he was _sick_. There was no guarantee that it would be okay. And his depression didn’t help to define him, it was just holding him back from who he was.

But this was what life had dealt him, and fuck it if Magnus hadn’t managed to turn every other shitty card into a win.

***

3.

Magnus felt guilty.

Unfortunately, he was struggling to work out whether it was reasonable guilt, or guilt brought on by the bout of depression he was clawing his way through, trying desperately to keep his head above the water but seeming to sink steadily lower.

It had come on fast, this time, and had caught Magnus completely off guard, because he’d felt so very good for so long. There hadn’t been any inciting incident. In fact, Magnus was fairly sure he hadn’t been happier for years. And yet, there it was, always brewing beneath the surface, ready to flare up and drag Magnus down for weeks and months at a time.

He’d been forcing himself into work, because experience told him that lounging around at home wouldn’t make him feel any better, but Ragnor wouldn’t let him work himself to the bone like a part of him wanted to, desperately, just to get out of his head.

“Go home, Magnus,” he’d said, once six o’clock had rolled around. “Your empire isn’t going to topple just because you spend a few weeks working eight hours a day instead of eleven. Go home. And call someone over!”

Magnus had not, on any evening, called someone over. Ragnor had come to check in on him a few times, but other than that, he’d remained alone in his apartment every evening.

Which was precisely why he felt so damn guilty. Because he’d cancelled on Alec when he felt the symptoms creeping in, telling Alec that he was sick, and had proceeded to ignore him for two weeks.

He just...couldn’t. He couldn’t find it in himself to reply. Not to Alec’s gentle, kind-hearted well wishes, not to his easy, unpressurised check up a few days later, and not to the tentative text he’d sent Magnus the day before, asking whether everything was okay.

Normally, Magnus would have taken immense pleasure in texting Alec back. But there was a miserable sort of listlessness in him that couldn’t find the energy to respond. He wanted to, but every time he opened his messages and had his fingers hovering over the keyboard, he ended up throwing his phone down again. He couldn’t do it. Trying to think of something to say made him feel exhausted.

A plaintive meow met his ears, and he glanced up from where he was slumped on the sofa with an untouched plate of bread and cheese. Chairman Meow leapt down from the cabinet and trotted over to Magnus. His tiny little paws pressed painfully into Magnus’ thighs, and he head-butted Magnus insistently, with a great deal of dissatisfied noise.

“Fuck, I didn’t feed you, did I?” Magnus asked, rhetorically. He threw his head back with a sigh, and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Chairman.”

Chairman Meow blinked balefully at him, and then jumped down, pattering back into the kitchen to circle round his bowl, shooting Magnus haughty looks.

Magnus inhaled deeply, and let the breath out in a rush. During his most serious bout of depression, when he’d just turned eighteen, his psychiatrist had suggested getting a dog. It had seemed precisely insane to Magnus at the time - how the hell could he have looked after a dog when he couldn’t look after himself? - but, of course, he’d taken to Google to read about it. Even once the Internet had convinced him, a dog had still seemed like rather a monumental and daunting prospect, especially when he was studying and modelling and struggling not to throw himself off the Brooklyn Bridge, so, two days later, he’d come home with Chairman Meow bundled in his arms.

He’d never regretted it.

“There you go,” Magnus said, scratching between the Chairman’s ears as he emptied a packet of cat food into the dish. “You can stop whining now.”

Just as Magnus was considering whether he should just go to bed, because, frankly, he wasn’t going to do anything else with his evening, the buzzer sounded. He rolled his eyes. God, why did people always bother him at the most irritating times? Talking to someone was the last thing he wanted to do.

If the Chairman hadn’t already made him get up, Magnus was fairly sure he would have ignored it. As it was, he buzzed whoever it was in through without asking for their name, and hauled open the front door.

He blinked. His visitor had already got through security—and there were only four people in the world who had access to his front door like that.

“Hi,” Alec said, smiling bashfully. He paused for a moment, hesitating, and then continued, words tumbling out in a rush. “I’m really sorry to just turn up unannounced, and I won’t be offended at all if you want me to go, but I was worried about you and I missed you and you weren’t answering my texts and part of me was slightly terrified that I’d upset you but mostly I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” Alec took a breath, at last, and held up a bag. “And, um, I got you take-out. It’s from Java’s.”

For a long, heavy moment, Magnus stared at him, utterly taken aback. Alec was there, on his doorstep with a bag of his favourite take-out, worried about them but more worried about Magnus, clearly nervous but so selflessly caring.

Magnus didn’t quite know what to do with it all. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone but Catarina and Ragnor had cared like this. And even then, it wasn’t quite the same. They were his friends. He’d known them for so very long. Alec... He’d only known Alec for a few months.

Alec’s expression slipped at Magnus’ prolonged silence. “I’ll go, I don’t want to intrude. I just– Yeah. Okay.”

“No, wait,” Magnus said, surprising himself.

He scrubbed a hand down his face, suddenly very aware that he must have looked a state. His make-up was two days old, he hadn’t showered since god knew when, and he hadn’t touched his hair for days. The realisation that Alec was seeing him like that made him feel cripplingly self-conscious—which he didn’t feel particularly accustomed to.

“I’m not...” Magnus let out a weak laugh. “I’m not really myself at the moment.”

“I can see that,” Alec said gently, with more confidence. “It’s okay. If you want me to go, I’ll go, but if you want company, or if you need anything...?”

“I—” Magnus pressed his hands against his eyes and shook his head. Voice muffled, he said, “I don’t know, I just– I can’t–”

“Oh, no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.” Alec’s voice was soft, concerned, and saturated with kindness. It made Magnus’ breath hitch, and he hated himself just a little bit for it. “Magnus, hey, come here.”

Magnus found himself being folded into the warmth of Alec’s embrace. He sucked in a gasping breath of sheer relief as he let his chin rest on Alec’s shoulder, and Alec’s arms tightened around him, and something in him snapped, like weights dropping off his chest. Being hugged felt so fucking nice. Part of him wanted to run a hundred miles, slam the door in Alec’s face and slink back to bed, but nobody had touched him for days, and he craved the comfort of human contact.

Besides, Alec always did give good hugs.

“Sorry,” Magnus said, sniffing. He wasn’t crying, but it was a close call. He didn’t want to cry. He was sick of feeling miserable. Just for a moment, he let himself press closer and cling on. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s alright.” Alec’s hand ran soothingly up his back to clasp gently at his neck. He ran circles into Magnus’ skin with his thumb, and, god, it felt so good. So much better than sitting alone on his sofa. “Better?”

“A bit,” Magnus said, and drew back. “Thank you. Come in.”

“Are you sure?”

Magnus nodded. “Yes. Please.”

Alec followed him inside. He shut the door quietly, toed off his boots on the welcome mat, and as he took off his jacket, Magnus realised that he was still in his uniform. He’d come to see Magnus straight from work.

The knowledge filled Magnus with just a hint of warmth.

“Would you like anything?” Magnus asked, forcing himself into the role of host. He found himself praying that Alec would say no.

Alec shook his head. “No, no, you’re sick, you tell me how I can help.”

Magnus smiled a small, fond smile. “You can’t really, darling.”

Alec frowned. “Well, I know I’m not a doctor, but—”

Magnus stopped him. “Alexander, I’ve got depression.”

“Oh.” Alec’s frown didn’t budge. “Okay. That’s...that’s shit. I’m sorry.”

As reactions went, it wasn’t the worst Magnus had ever got. Eloquent, no, but at least Alec didn’t seem fazed, or judgemental. In fact, he seemed precisely the same level of concerned and sympathetic as he had been when he first showed up at Magnus’ door, as though Magnus being sick with depression was no different to being sick with flu.

Something about that was oddly nice. Alec just saw him as sick, not crazy, or damaged, or fragile. Just sick.

“It’s recurring. Sort of. I go through phases. I had it first when I was about fifteen, and I had really bad depression when I was eighteen, and it rears its head every now and then. Mostly it’s fine, and it’s under control. Sometimes I get symptoms of it for a day or two, and then they go and don’t amount to anything, and sometimes they stay, and this happens.”

Alec was silent for a moment, processing. Then: “Do you take medication? Or– Shit. Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

Magnus cut him off. “It’s okay. When it’s bad like this, and persistent, yes. I haven’t had to for a while. I last came off them when I turned twenty-one. Exercise has been really good for controlling my symptoms. And therapy.”

Alec nodded, but he didn’t say anything else. Undoubtedly, he had questions, but he’d apparently decided to hold his tongue, for the moment. Maybe Magnus looked like too much of a disaster to withstand being questioned about his illness. Maybe Alec was trying to be tactful. Maybe he didn’t know what to say.

The quiet between them seemed thick with tension - although, that was probably more Magnus’ insecurities riding to the surface than anything else. He cleared his throat, desperate for Alec to say something to break the silence.

Alec blinked, and then held up the bag of take-out. “Do you want this?”

The smell of it made Magnus salivate, but also feel slightly nauseated. He hadn’t really eaten much in the last week, having entirely lost his appetite, and he wasn’t sure whether he’d cope with Java’s food. But he was hungry.

“It’s mostly simple stuff,” Alec said, glancing down into the bag as though to check what he’d ordered. “There’s some rice, some pretty bland curry thing, some bread... It’s all plain. I thought you might not want fancy food if you were sick. I was gonna get you soup, but I remembered you saying you don’t like it much.”

It was things like that that made Magnus like Alec so damn much. He didn’t remember telling Alec that - it had probably been a passing comment, a little anecdote - and yet Alec had remembered.

“Thank you,” Magnus said, and Alec looked up at him with a strange sort of confusion.

“Hm?”

“Thank you,” Magnus said again. “For the food. And...for coming. Sometimes I’m hard to be around when I’m like this, so if you want to leave, just say so. I won’t be offended.”

“Alright,” Alec said, “but only if you’ll say if you want me to go and leave you in peace.”

Magnus smiled faintly at him. “Deal.”

Alec’s smile was small, and soft, and so, so beautiful. “Deal.”

It wasn’t until late in the evening that Alec left, having spent the last several hours trying to be quietly helpful. He made Magnus promise to text if he needed anything, left a soft kiss on Magnus’ cheek, and slipped out of the door like a ghostly angel.

***

4.

There was nothing quite like making Alexander smile.

Every time he managed it, every time over the last year he’d managed to elicit that wonderful, white-teeth crinkled-eyes grin, it had made Magnus’ heart skip a beat in his chest, wonder and awe and affection filling him at the mere sight of it. There was nothing to be done in response but smile back and press a kiss to the arch of his cheek.

The swell of emotion he always gained when he made Alec smile might have made him feel infinitesimally better, then. Unfortunately, he was in absolutely no mental state to garner such a reaction.

Instead, those hazel eyes had concern swimming in their depths and kindness glittering at their edges, and it was almost too much for Magnus to be able to look at.

That sort of expression stirred up an entirely different well of emotions. More complicated ones. Love - which he couldn’t admit yet - and fear - which he never quite could shake, at those moments of vulnerability - and that twisting of guilt, because fucking hell, couldn’t he just get a grip on himself and be done with it? Couldn’t he just be _normal_? Dealing with all of his shit took so much fucking effort. From both of them.

“You want anything?” Alec asked, from where he was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, looking out across the living room to where Magnus had curled up on the sofa, watching the TV but not really seeing a thing.

Magnus glanced over at him, and he wished he could have cracked some silly one liner to get a flash of that smile.

“I’m fine,” he said, instead. “Thank you.”

“Alright,” Alec said, and Magnus was sure he saw straight through the lie, but he let it go. He didn’t push. “Do you want me to stay or go?”

“You can go if you need to.”

Alec pulled a face. “I’m only going to work in the morning. It doesn’t make any difference to me whether I sleep here or at home from that point of view. I’m asking what you want.”

“I want to be normal,” Magnus muttered under his breath.

“Normal’s boring.”

Shit. He hadn’t intended Alec to hear that.

He exhaled. “I want you to stay, selfishly, but I don’t want you to have to be around me when I’m like this. I know I’m pretty miserable company.”

“I think I can decide for myself what I want to be around,” Alec said mildly. “I want to be there for you. So whatever you need, I’m here, okay?”

“Okay.” Magnus smiled faintly. “You’re beautiful, you know that?”

A faint hint of pink washed across Alec’s cheeks, and his lips tipped up minutely at the corners, clearly pleased by the compliment, before he schooled his features. Magnus wished he wouldn’t.

“Thanks,” he said, looking over at Magnus from beneath the sweep of his lashes. “Ditto.”

“Will you come sit with me?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Alec sat down beside Magnus on the sofa, and reached over to fix the blanket Magnus had wrapped around himself earlier in the evening. Magnus looked over at him, studying the handsome cut of his face and the sweep of his eyelashes, and wondered how someone so beautiful could also have such a generous heart.

Apparently, Magnus’ staring wasn’t especially subtle: Alec glanced up from fiddling with the blanket, and smiled that lop-sided grin that never failed to make Magnus’ heart turn over. The sight made Magnus feel a touch better, just for a moment.

“Thank you,” Magnus said, and tucked himself against Alec’s side.

“Don’t mention it,” Alec told him, wrapping his arm around Magnus’ shoulders. He pulled him closer, and Magnus closed his eyes, letting himself soak up Alec’s presence.

It didn’t solve anything, didn’t magically fix whatever was wrong with his brain, but it helped. Being with someone helped. Being held by someone he loved and felt safe with helped. And, god, being able to rely on someone helped. Therapy had changed Magnus’ life, but it had also taught him that he needed a support system he could trust and depend on. It was almost scary how quickly Alec had fitted right into his. Even scarier was how easily Alec had accepted it all; he’d come to terms with all of Magnus’ shit.

Well. Not quite all. Because Magnus hadn’t told him everything, yet. But he wanted to.

“Alexander?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I talk to you about something?”

Magnus felt rather than saw Alec’s frown, and he knew what Alec would say before he did. He’d confided in Alec, that very first time Alec had come to his apartment when he’d been drowning in his depression, and admitted that one of the worst things about his depression was the exhaustion. The sheer lack of energy or motivation to do _anything_. How sometimes he’d feel so lethargic that it made him furious, and he’d end up lashing out for no real reason, before retreating back into himself out of guilt.

How, often, the thought of having to hold a conversation made him want to curl up and die quietly.

“Of course you can,” Alec said, “but are you sure—”

“I feel better than I did this morning,” Magnus said. “I think my body is just having an argument with my meds.”

Alec hummed. “Who’s winning?”

“The meds.” Magnus sighed. “I know it’s kind of a miserable topic, but can I tell you about how this started?”

“Magnus, you can tell me anything you like. You know that.”

God, Magnus adored him. More than he’d ever adored anyone. Alexander Lightwood just managed to make him feel better. Alec’s presence didn’t make everything better - of course it didn’t - but sometimes Alec made him feel less...broken. Less alone in his illness. Less like he had to hide. He wasn’t quite sure why, because it wasn’t like Catarina or Ragnor had ever made him as though there was something shameful about having depression - far from it - but Alec was...oddly in tune with Magnus. It seemed almost like he understood.

Perhaps Magnus wasn’t the first depressed loved one Alec had been there for. Perhaps he’d been through it himself, some time.

So Magnus told him. He told him about the long, messy history of depression in his family, and how it had taken his mother to her grave. He told him about growing up in foster care, about struggling to accept himself as a teenager, about desperately trying to make himself stand out in the modelling industry—sometimes in unhealthy ways. He told him about the stress of trying to make it while he studied for a degree, and about the relationships he’d ruined before they could even start.

When he stopped talking, it was abrupt. It wasn’t a natural place to stop. But, all at once, he felt that dense, heavy exhaustion clawing at the edges of his mind, and he found himself unable to drag up any more words. Alec didn’t say anything. Merely ran his fingers through the short hair at the base of Magnus’ skull, and turned his head to press a kiss to his temple.

“It’s really amazing that you’ve done all this with your life, while carrying that,” he said, nose pressed to Magnus’ hair. “It’s amazing that you took it by the horns and refused to let it get the best of you.”

Magnus wanted to tell Alec that sometimes - at times like these - he did let it get the best of him. He let it overwhelm him, because sometimes he wasn’t strong enough to stop it. Sometimes he didn’t want to stop it. He couldn’t. The dark part of his mind told him that he deserved it.

But he didn’t say it. Partly because he couldn’t, but partly because the minute little corner of his consciousness that stayed clear was screaming the truth—that he didn’t deserve it, that it wasn’t his fault, and that Alec was right. He just couldn’t always see that, when he was like this.

“I don’t think I could do that,” Alec murmured, so quietly Magnus wasn’t sure he’d heard him correctly.

They were silent for several long moments. Magnus could feel sleep tugging at him, willing him to curl up and shut off from the world. He’d probably feel a bit better in the morning. This wasn’t going to be a long episode. He could tell. He wasn’t sure how, but he could. He’d be okay. It didn’t have quite the same all-consuming quality that it sometimes did. It felt milder.

“Do you want to go to bed?” Alec asked, as though he could read Magnus’ mind.

Magnus nodded. He apparently didn’t need to do more than look at Alexander for him to understand that Magnus wanted him to come, too.

They curled up close beneath the duvet, and Magnus took comfort in the knowledge that he wasn’t alone. Being alone was the worst bit. Being left to his thoughts with nobody to remind him that they weren’t true, not really—they were being manipulated by something out of his control.

“Alec?” he whispered, opening his eyes and turning his head to look at Alec. He couldn’t really make out his features in the darkness: just the faint outline of his profile.

Alec’s fingertips rubbed lightly at Magnus’ hip. “Yeah?”

“In the morning, make me have a shower.”

Hygiene and good personal habits - like eating breakfast - so often went out of the window when low periods hit. But sometimes, if they weren’t too low, forcing himself to do something normal, something just for himself, made him feel better.

Alec nodded, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Magnus felt him mumble something against his skin, but he didn’t quite catch it, and, before he had the sense of mind to ask, he was drifting off to sleep.

***

5.

  
“Leave me alone, Alec.”

Alec exhaled heavily from where he stood behind the sofa Magnus had curled up on to stoically ignore him. Through his peripheries, Magnus saw Alec run a hand down his face, something tight pinching at the corners of his lips. It made Magnus feel incredibly guilty. But it didn’t lessen how absolutely shit he felt, and how absolutely he did not give a single flying fuck about whatever Alec was trying to convince him to do.

“Magnus, I’m trying to help.” Alec sounded exhausted. “I’m not pulling things out of my ass to annoy you.”

“Well it is annoying me,” Magnus snapped, lifting his head to turn his gaze on Alec. “You always want me to tell you what I need. I need you to not do this right now.”

Eyes fluttering closed, Alec drew in a long, deep breath through his nose. Magnus could practically see him counting to ten in his head, trying to keep his temper, and it only served to heighten Magnus’ irritation.

“Alright,” Alec said, voice turning forcedly soft. “Alright. I’m going to make dinner. If you don’t want it, that’s up to you.”

Before he reached the kitchen, Alec paused. He didn’t turn around, instead speaking to the window when he said, “This is what you told me you wanted me to do. This is what you always tell me you need.”

That was true. Magnus knew - and hated - that that was true. These periods had become less and less common as he’d got older, but they were frequent enough for Alec to know what helped, what to try, what to push and what to leave. He pushed Magnus to get up and take a shower. He pushed Magnus to eat properly, to help make whatever they were going to eat, and not resort to take-out all the time. They pushed each other to go to bed at the same time most days.

He didn’t push Magnus to go out, or to socialise, or to do any more or less work than he felt he could. Encourage, sometimes, yes. But not push.

Magnus could hear Alec clanking around in the kitchen with more force than usual. He was annoyed, clearly, and Magnus couldn’t blame him. He knew it was frustrating. But Alec never, ever took it out on him, unlike most other people he’d dated, who couldn’t quite cope with Magnus’ episodes without taking things personally.

Maybe it was because Alec really, genuinely understood. Not depression, but mental illness. He understood how it fucked with people’s brains. He understood how, sometimes, it became impossible to be logical.

Eventually, the smell of tomatoes cooking roused Magnus enough for him to haul himself off the sofa and trek into the kitchen.

Music played quietly from the radio behind the stove, and Alec seemed more relaxed than he had earlier. His shoulders were looser, his lips no longer pressed tight together, the muscles in his face lax and at ease.

“I’m sorry,” Magnus said, and Alec jumped.

Alec spun on his heels and shot Magnus a glare that held little heat. “Jesus Christ. Don’t do that.”

“Sorry,” Magnus told him, lips turning up minutely. “I don’t mean to be difficult.”

Alec’s expression gentled. He reached out to grasp Magnus’ hand, tugged him forwards until their torsos brushed together, and wrapped an arm lightly around his waist.

“I know, babe,” he said, entirely sincere in his words, just as he always was. “I’m sorry if I pushed too hard. I don’t want to make things worse.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to know what worse is.”

Magnus rested his chin against Alec’s shoulder, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply as the hand Alec didn’t have at his waist came up to run through his hair. This was better. Much better than sitting on the sofa, wondering why, after three years clear, his greatest nemesis had reared its ugly head just to ruin things.

“I love you,” Alec murmured. “I know it’s hard, but I’m here, and you’re loved, and you can get through this, just like you always have before.”

Magnus pressed closer, as though trying to assimilate himself into the warmth and comfort of Alec’s embrace. “I love you too.”

After several long moments, Magnus pulled back. Alec lifted a hand to touch his knuckles to Magnus’ cheek, wedding ring catching the light as he moved. Magnus swallowed, and offered him a small smile.

“Dinner is pretty much done,” Alec said. “You want any?”

“Yeah, I’ll have some.”

Alec didn’t move for a moment, and merely watched him with an inscrutable expression.

“It’s gonna be okay, Magnus.”

Once, Magnus had wondered whether Alec was, genuinely, psychic. Sometimes he seemed to know exactly what Magnus was thinking. Sometimes even better than Magnus knew, himself. But he’d quickly realised that it wasn’t that at all. Alec was just good at reading Magnus—good at knowing what to make of the silences and the pauses and the empty gestures and the space between the movement.

He knew Magnus so well, so easily, that it had scared Magnus at first. He hadn’t known everything instantly - of course he hadn’t - but he’d always been so damn good at deconstructing Magnus’ layers.

It was familiar, now. Comforting.

“I really hate feeling like this. I thought I was done with it. After so long...”

A buzzer went off as Magnus spoke. Alec turned to take whatever he had simmering in a pot off the stove, and then returned his full attention to Magnus, as though it wasn’t nine o’clock at night and Alec wasn’t starving and didn’t care about delaying his dinner to listen to Magnus whine.

Well. Knowing Alec as he did, he probably didn’t.

“I know,” Alec told him, softly. “I’m so sorry that you have to go through this. And I know you know this, but I’ll say it again: I’m here for whatever you need me to be, okay? If you want me to take a day off, I’ll take a day off. If you want me to go to work and leave you alone, I will. If you want me to hound your psychiatrist until they book you in for an hour’s time, I’ll do that too.”

Magnus smiled at that, no doubt remembering, like Alec, the time he had done exactly that. Not that it had taken much hounding, really, because Magnus’ psychiatrist always kept slots open for short-term bookings, but it had been wonderful nonetheless, because the last thing Magnus had wanted was to book himself an appointment.

“I do know. But thank you.” He slipped into a chair at the marble-topped island in the middle of their kitchen. “Sometimes I don’t know why you put up with this.”

Alec fixed him with a _look_. One of his tilted-head, raised-eyebrows looks that managed to thoroughly admonish Magnus with just his eyes, without making Magnus feel stupid, or even more high maintenance than he already did.

“Sometimes I don’t know why you put up with me,” Alec said, and shrugged. “But we love each other. We married each other. This is what marriage is, right? In sickness and in health.”

“In sickness and in health,” Magnus murmured.

And, god, he didn’t feel _good_ , not yet, not even close. But he felt better.

And that was a start.

***

+1.

Magnus had always been able to tell when a low period was turning into something more.

As a teenager, his low periods had all been part of a mindset that was, even at its best, far below what it should have been. Far below happy and healthy and neurotypical. As an adult, it had been better. Manageable. Well managed, even. So well managed that, more often than not, he forgot that anything separated his brain from anyone else’s.

Something in him had feared, last night, that his persistently shit mood over the last three days had been indicative of a relapse. That he would need to go back to his psychiatrist and try yet another type of medication, or another type of therapy, or something, just to keep him functional, before it took over his life like it had when he was a teenager and trying to break onto the modelling scene.

But, when he stepped through the front door to see Alec sprawled on the rug between the sofa and the table, a smile bright on his face as their baby babbled at him from where he was held securely in Alec’s hands, lightness filtered through Magnus. Not the momentary bursts of relief and happiness he sometimes got during episodes of depression—just _lightness_. Ease. The comfort of being home driving away everything bad in his mind.

The neurotypical response to a bad week. Not his brain’s fucked up depressed version.

Not this time. In the future, perhaps it would strike again. Perhaps he’d never really be rid of it. He was susceptible to it. Genetically predisposed, or whatever.

But not today. Not now.

Alec tilted his head back to look at Magnus, craning his neck so his face was upside-down.

“Hey,” he said, eyes warm and brow furrowing with just a hint of concern. Magnus had told him - because of course he had, because he trusted Alec more than he trusted anyone in the world, and he told Alec probably far too much - and Alec had been attentive, watchful, but not pushy. “How are you feeling?”

Magnus smiled at his husband and then at Max, who had his eyes fixed on Magnus’ hand. Rings entranced Max. Probably because they were shiny and made pretty colours on the walls when they caught the light.

“Pretty good, actually,” Magnus told him, and a pleased sort of relief flooded across Alec’s face.

“That’s great, babe,” Alec said, hazel eyes soft. He jerked his chin. “C’mere.”

Without hesitation, Magnus crossed the room and dropped to his knees on the rug by Alec’s head. He dropped a kiss on Max’s head, and then on Alec’s lips. The sight of the two of them, Alec and Max, watching him together, Alec smiling and Max with those beautiful wide eyes of his that seemed adorably surprised and enraptured by everything—it made Magnus’ chest tight with an adoration so strong he didn’t know how his mortal, human heart could contain it all.

“How was your day?” Magnus asked, running his fingers through Alec’s hair while Max made to grab at his necklaces. Clearly, it hadn’t been too awful, but he could see how tired Alec looked.

“Not bad, actually. Your son was not pleased about bath time.”

Magnus arched his eyebrows, lips twitching. “ _My_ son? What happened to _our_ son?”

“He’s yours when he’s bad,” Alec said, absolutely shameless with that stupid little grin that Magnus loved to pieces. “And as much as I love him, I’m glad it’s your turn tomorrow.” He paused. His brow furrowed, smile dropping away to be replaced by something soft and serious. “That is, if you’re feeling up to it.”

“Absolutely. I really am feeling fine. I mean, like your anxiety, I’m not saying it’s never going to happen again, but...”

“I get it.” Fingers tangled through his own. “We’ve got this, right?”

Magnus squeezed Alec’s hand. “Yeah. We’ve got this.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and please do let me know what you thought - I love hearing from you all!
> 
> If you want to, you can find me on [Tumblr](http://notcrypticbutcoy.tumblr.com) and in [Twitter](https://twitter.com/lucysrebelheart?lang=en)
> 
> If you’re struggling with any kind of mental health issue, reaching out - whether that be to a doctor, if you know you can trust your doctors, or another mental health professional, or a counselling/support group, or just a friend - is, honestly, the most beneficial thing you can do. Struggling alone is awful and scary. I know it can be hard, but (at least in my experience) just knowing that you’re not alone in it can be an enormous relief.
> 
> Much love, (and happy holidays!)  
> Lu <3


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